I joined CNN International’s George Howell on Sunday morning to discuss Donald Trump’s latest exploitation of anti-immigration rhetoric and action for his 2020 re-election bid: cutting off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras and threatening to close the Mexico border.
We discuss Trump’s exploitation of the issue — “manufacture the crisis to declare there’s a crisis” — the cost of his latest step, and the paradox that it is likely to increase migration, playing into his re-election gambit.
Trump is blowing smoke on closing the border just to get headlines, because of the economic damage to the US and Mexican economies.
Far more serious is the cutoff of aid — it goes for anti-violence programs, it goes for education, it goes for job opportunities. It’s a counter-productive move, but does Trump care about the effects? No, because he gets the headline for being tough and blaming others for the crisis.
